Registration Abuse Policies Working Group

[Milton L Mueller]

Evan:
I personally don't believe that domain speculation is "abuse," any more than real estate or stock market speculation is inherently abusive.
Nevertheless, yours is a perfectly legitimate position and like all such positions any member of NCUC has a right to express it especially on open working groups, and in our NCUC-discuss list.

We did have a NCUC member on that RAP group, and we have already gone through some angst trying to figure out how certain things (e.g., gripe sites that use a trademarked name) got defined as "abuse". One of the problems with relying on noncommercial group volunteers is precisely that they are not specialists and therefore not well-attuned to the games played by the professionals on these groups. It takes time to learn the ropes. The only way to have an impact is to be persistent and learn the ropes and speak out.

I believe that the domain name secondary market is an economic issue and if you believe in regulating domaining or speculation in new ways (i.e., in addition to UDRP and the new limits on "tasting") let's hear about it.

--MM

________________________________
From: Non-Commercial User Constituency [mailto:NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Robin Gross
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 8:00 PM
To: NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Registration Abuse Policies Working Group

Hello Evan,

I am glad that you have brought up the issue of the Registration Abuse Policies Working Group because I have also been hearing things about it working to make anonymous online speech more difficult over concerns of trademark infringement and the like.

But we need to get more people in this group - which has been operating under the radar of much of the GNSO, but I think would concern the GNSO if they knew what they were up to.  We need quite a few smart techies in this group who can cross swords with dozens of highly paid business lobbyists.  And we should coordinate our strategies to the extent possible.

The issue that I would like for this group to explore is "trademark lawyer abuse" and how overzealous trademark lawyers abuse the system, often over-state their claim, and take over domain name registrations in a "bullying" fashion.

And from what I've heard, this RAP working group wants criticism on websites to be considered per se "abuse" of a domain name!

So I think there may be many important issues we should look into with respect to this RAP WG and this could be a good opportunity to collaborate on issues.

Let's talk further and find our members who want to work on this group.

Thank you,
Robin

On Jul 6, 2009, at 6:48 AM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:


Hello all,

At the Sydney ICANN meeting I had the opportunity to attend a session of the "Registration Abuse Policies Working Group", which I believe is a GNSO subcommittee that encourages participation from outside GNSO.

Well, that's the theory. What I found at that meeting was a room full of vested interests and contracted partied, determined to report to ICANN that the only real form of registration abuse is that of trademark abuse.

When I dared mention at the Sydney session that some people consider domaining and domain speculation to be a form of "abuse", I received what I believed to be some abuse of my own. While Beau and Patrick were also at the meeting, I was left alone to take the multi-voiced attack from those who seemed insulted that I should even raise the issue.

Now, I know that not everyone within At-Large is an opponent of domain speculation. But I would like to get some guidance -- or some opinions -- regarding whether this voice needs to be maintained within this group. I am especially astounded that there was nobody from NCUC at the group, leaving the At-Large people -- and me specifically, in this particular case -- trying to make the case that not all registration abuse is trademark related.

As I get ready to participate in a conference call of this group for which I am ill prepared (just got home yesterday after a second conference I had that followed Sydney), I would like to hear some feedback. Am I wasting my time here? Does ALAC have its own position of the issue of registrant abuse?

I am fully aware that I am not acting as an At-Large, and as such speak there for nobody but myself. However, it would be helpful if I could be guided by previous At-Large policy and current At-Large sentiment.

Is the statement "domain squatting and speculation constitutes a form of registrant abuse" accurate to anyone here? Or should I be advancing issues related to other forms of registrant abuse? Or should I even bother? I have better uses of my time than being at the end of a verbal firing squad.

I'd also like to hear some perspectives from Beau and Patrick, the only other "user" minded people in the room that day.

- Evan




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Robin Gross, Executive Director
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